Croakey Health Media has launched an innovative concept to embed health journalism in research projects, reports Leanne Wells.
“Embedding health journalism is a strategic investment in research quality, translation and public value,” writes Wells, who recently joined the Croakey team as Director of Business Development, and has extensive experience in health policy, as a consumer advocate and is also involved in research.
Leanne Wells writes:
Health research spans diverse fields including genomics, digital health, health services research and public health. Research focused on prevention and population health also addresses the social, commercial, cultural, political and environmental determinants of health.
Substantial investment through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), industry and philanthropy support health research. At the same time, there are increasing calls for Australia to increase investment if it is to establish itself as a global leader in health research and innovation at a time of polycrisis.
Yet generating evidence is only part of the equation. Research achieves its full value only when it informs policy, improves clinical practice, influences public understanding and ultimately benefits communities and addresses health inequalities.
Creating public value
Publicly funded health research discovers new treatments, improves models of care, strengthens patient safety and informs policy decisions about where resources should be directed, which services communities need and how key challenges – such as climate-related health impacts – should be addressed.
Beyond these tangible outcomes, health research serves an important civic purpose. It strengthens health literacy, counters misinformation and disinformation, and enables consumers to make more informed decisions about their health.
The value of health research is therefore realised at multiple levels – individual, clinical, system-wide, economic and societal. Academic publications remain essential, but they are not the endpoint.
Research creates public value only when knowledge is understood, trusted and applied. Evidence changes practice only when it reaches the people who can use it.
Transformational concept
Science communication – the translation of complex research into accessible and meaningful information – is becoming an increasingly important component of healthcare policy and research. This is where embedded health journalism can make a significant contribution.
The concept of embedded journalism originated in military reporting, where war correspondents are attached to military units involved in armed conflicts, as a way of gaining access that otherwise may not be possible.
Croakey has built upon this concept to develop a model for embedded journalism as an independent discipline embedded within the life of health research projects, producing works of journalism around the research topic and questions. This model is expected to contribute to innovation in research processes and outcomes, as well as journalism practice and theory.
Traditionally, communication has been viewed as the final stage of research – a media release, conference presentation or technical report.
However, embedded journalism offers far more than the opportunity for dissemination of research findings. It is a strategic function that shapes understanding, engagement, trust and ultimately the translation of evidence into policy and practice.
Embedding health journalism within grant-funded research teams strengthens both the quality and impact of research. While investigators rightly prioritise methodological rigour and scholarly publication, embedded journalism offers the opportunity to bring another disciplinary perspective to bear upon research processes and outcomes.
It also contributes to translation of evidence into forms that are meaningful for policymakers, clinicians, consumers and the wider community.
The model’s benefits
1. Improving research design
Communication should begin before data collection, not after publication.
When specialist journalists contribute during project planning, they help identify priority audiences, anticipate information needs and key questions for research and stakeholders. Their work also contributes to engagement strategies that support meaningful participation.
They can facilitate co-design, strengthen consumer partnerships and ensure cultural safety and lived experience informs research from the outset. These capabilities are increasingly expected by funding bodies and ethics committees.
2. Translating evidence into usable knowledge
Research findings are frequently communicated through highly technical journal articles that are inaccessible to many intended users.
Embedded health journalists can provide high-impact, authentic stories that engage key stakeholders and audiences and include accountability roles.
The story telling can take many formats, including in-depth news features, profiles, place-based storytelling, videos, infographics, podcasts and public commentary pieces targeted at specific audiences.
By making key health issues and evidence understandable without compromising accuracy, they strengthen knowledge translation and increase the likelihood that research engges key stakeholders and influences practice and policy.
Croakey Health Media also offers other innovative journalistic services – such as #CroakeyLIVE webinars and #CroakeyGO walking journalism events – that can support research engagement and dissemination activities.
3. Keeping research connected to community priorities
Research teams can become unintentionally removed from the communities they seek to benefit.
Embedded journalists continually ask questions that improve both communication and research quality:
- Why does this matter?
- Who benefits?
- Whose voices are missing?
- How are Indigenous knowledges informing this work?
- What questions are consumers and other stakeholders asking?
By bringing these perspectives into research discussions, embedded journalists help ensure projects remain grounded in lived experience, social context and community priorities.
This approach aligns closely with the NHMRC and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia’s joint commitment to genuine consumer partnership and co-produced research.
4. Strengthening consumer and stakeholder engagement
Consumers are increasingly recognised as active partners rather than passive recipients of research. Meaningful partnership, however, requires ongoing dialogue – not isolated consultation exercises.
An embedded journalist can facilitate conversations with consumer groups and other key stakeholders, document stakeholder perspectives, investigate the wider context for the research and foster transparency throughout the project.
These activities strengthen relationships, build trust between researchers and the communities they serve, and have accountability roles.
5. Building trust, transparency and accountability
Public investment in research creates an implicit social contract: communities should understand how research funding is used and how the resulting knowledge benefits society.
Embedded journalists improve transparency by explaining what was studied, why it matters, and what has been learned. Importantly, they also bring questions of accountability to the table; for example, who is responsible for what happens next.
They are also well placed to communicate uncertainty, emerging evidence and risk responsibly – an increasingly important capability in an era characterised by misinformation, disinformation, institutional scepticism and rapidly evolving scientific knowledge.
6. Maximising impact beyond academia
Academic success has traditionally been measured through publications, citations and grant income. Increasingly, however, funding agencies expect demonstrable real-world impact, including evidence of policy influence, improvements in clinical practice and reform of the health system or other policy areas affecting health and wellbeing.
Health journalists understand how evidence enters public debate. They recognise compelling narratives, identify opportunities to engage decision-makers and translate complex findings into stories that resonate without compromising scientific integrity.
Evidence provides credibility. Stories create connection. Together, they are far more likely to influence decisions than either alone.
7. Building communication capability within research teams
Many researchers receive little formal training in media engagement, public communication or digital storytelling. Consequently, valuable opportunities to communicate evidence may be lost.
Embedded journalism can strengthen organisational capability by enabling researchers to participate in media interviews, message development, opinion writing, social media engagement and public speaking. These skills enable researchers to participate more confidently in public discourse and improve the visibility and influence of their work.
8. Countering health misinformation
Health misinformation and disinformation spread rapidly, particularly through digital platforms.
Embedded journalists can identify and address misinformation and disinformation risks early through their journalism. Their expertise is particularly valuable during public health emergencies or in areas of contested policy, where accurate, timely and trustworthy communication is essential.
Why this matters now
Embedding health journalism is a strategic investment in research quality, translation and public value.
Research projects routinely budget for statisticians, health economists, project managers and data analysts because these capabilities improve research quality. Communication expertise deserves similar recognition. Without effective communication, even excellent research risks being misunderstood, overlooked or failing to influence policy and practice.
Some might argue that communication expertise is difficult to justify within constrained research budgets. This perspective overlooks the cost of poor communication. Research that is inaccessible, misunderstood or ignored represents a diminished return on public investment.
As funding bodies place increasing emphasis on research impact, communications should be recognised as a core component of research infrastructure, and embedded journalism as an important innovation in this field.
Billions of dollars are invested globally in health research each year. A comparatively modest investment in embedded journalism has the potential to substantially increase the reach, uptake and societal value of that research.
It also can help sustain public interest journalism at a time when its sustainability is under serious threat.
The next evolution in research funding should recognise communication expertise as an essential capability.
Funding schemes should encourage – and ultimately expect – the inclusion of communications expertise such as embedded health journalism as part of multidisciplinary research teams and their research proposals.
Please reach out if you and your research team would like to meet with Croakey to find out more about this innovative concept. We tailor the model to suit your project.
• Contact Leanne Wells here.
Author details
With training in communications, a career in public policy, leadership roles in primary care and health consumer affairs and as a researcher in consumer leadership, Leanne Wells was thrilled to take up the role of Director, Business Development at Croakey Health Media in June 2026.
Leanne is a health policy consultant and consumer advocate with over 30 years’ experience in national health and social policy, program, and service development. She is the former longstanding CEO of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, the nation’s preeminent peak body for healthcare consumers. She has served as CEO of national peak and state-based organisations in the primary health sector after a public sector career.
Leanne has extensive governance and advisory experience. She has served as a Non-Executive Director on boards in the for-purpose and health and human service sectors and as a Ministerial appointee to several Australian Government advisory groups. She is presently Board Director at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and chairs the Primary Care Committee at the Commission. She is a Director at Women’s Health Matters, serves on several Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) committees as a community representative and is affiliated with the Australian Social Prescribing Institute for Research and Education (ASPIRE).
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